500 
FOREST AND STREAM 
April 19, 1913 
Published Weekly by the 
Forest and Stream Publishing Company, 
Charles Otis, President. 
W. G. Beeoroft, Secretary. W. J. Gallagher, Treasurer. 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
CORRESPONDENCE— Forest and Stream is the 
recognized medium of entertainment, instruction and in¬ 
formation between American sportsmen. The editors 
invite communications on the subjects to which its pages 
are devoted, but, of course, are not responsible for the 
views of correspondents. Anonymous communications 
cannot be regarded. 
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ADVERTISE5IENTS: Display and classified, 20 cts. 
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the inch. Covers and special positions extra. Five, 
ten and twenty per cent, discount for 13, 26 and 52 inser¬ 
tions, respectively, within one year. Forms close Monday 
in advance of publication date. 
Entered as second-class matter at the Post-Office, 
New York, N. Y. 
DR. TOWNSEND VINDICATED. 
Some months ago we called attention to a 
scandalous attack made by a committee of the 
House of Representatives, of which John R. 
Rothermel was chairman, on Dr. Charles H. 
Townsend, of the New York Zoological Society. 
We pointed out that the attack was without 
foundation, and that in the testimony taken by 
the Rothermel Committee, there was nothing to 
justify the charges made. 
As Dr. Townsend is a public official, the 
New York Zoological Society felt it necessary 
that the attack on him should be made the sub¬ 
ject of an independent investigation, and accord¬ 
ingly the executive committee of the Zoological 
Society referred the matter to one of its mem¬ 
bers, W. W. Niles, a lawyer of New York, 
for investigation and report. Mr. Niles made 
a complete and thorough investigation of the 
evidence taken by the Rothermel Committee, and 
of the proceedings before the Hague Tribunal 
at which Dr. Townsend was a witness, and has 
reported that neither in the evidence taken 
by the committee or in the proceedings of 
the Hague Tribunal is there anything which 
justifies the charges of the Rothermel Com¬ 
mittee. Mr. Niles takes up each one of the 
charges, and quotes testimony bearing on it and 
concludes that the charges from the report of 
the majority of the Rothermel Committee “are 
absolutely without justification from any evi¬ 
dence to the committee.” 
Mr. Niles’ report to the executive commit¬ 
tee of the New York Zoological Society—con¬ 
sisting of Madison Grant, Chairman; Samuel 
Thorne, Wm. Pierson Hamilton, W. W. Niles, 
Henry Fairfield Osborn, Frank K. Sturgis, Percy 
R. Pyne and Lispenard Stewart-—was considered 
by that body, which thereafter unanimously 
passed the following resolutions: 
Resolved, That after a full examination of 
the proceedings of the House Committee on Ex¬ 
penditures in the Department of Commerce and 
Labor, and of the report submitted by the 
minority of the said committee by which it ap¬ 
pears that the said committee has never held a 
single meeting for the purpose of considering 
the evidence, and that the report made by the 
chairman was never submitted to the committee 
for its consideration, and that in the opinion of 
the minority the report had never been approved 
by a majority of the committee, that it is the 
unanimous opinion of this executive committee 
that the honesty and integrity of Dr. Charles H. 
Townsend have not been impugned in any way; 
that the recommendations of said Congressional 
Committee are in no wise justified by the evidence 
taken by the committee; that the report of the 
majority of the committee is drawn without any 
reference to the facts in regard to Dr. Town¬ 
send’s connection with the matter, and that the 
attack upon him is unjustifiable, malicious and 
untruthful, and further 
Resolved, That the Executive Committee of 
the New York Zoological Society does unani¬ 
mously approve and endorse the report upon the 
subject prepared by Mr. Niles and the conclu¬ 
sions contained therein. 
TAGGING BIRDS. 
In another column appears an interesting 
letter from a St. Louis shooter on the subject 
of wildfowl tagging as a means to spring shoot¬ 
ing. He has invented a most iiigenious tag, 
whereby one may tell the day of the month and 
the month in the year when the fowl was killed. 
He suggests that the Government sell tags at 
twenty-five cents each, funds thus received to be 
used for game propagation. The plan reads 
like sincerity, and probably the writer so in¬ 
tended it, nevertheless any loop hole that will 
give the market hunter a chance to ply his trade 
should be killed upon its inception. Most of 
this class of gunner is without sense of honor, 
and any scheme to tag would be evaded, while 
many hotel proprietors would cheat the law by 
repeating on the tags or otherwise getting around 
the license. An ounce ®f prevention in this in¬ 
stance will do more for propagation of wildfowl 
than will a million tags—tag day is past, and we 
veto any suggestion that may open the way to 
spring bird destruction. 
AN ICELESS EXIT OE WINTER. 
Under the laws of compensation and as an 
offset to the damage by spring floods in the 
Middle West, the absence of floating ice or of 
ice gorges on practically all of the great streams 
of the country certainly is a factor not to be 
ignored. Had there been this general element 
added to the enormous flow of water, the de¬ 
struction would have been more extensive. 
The only partially ice-bound territory now 
is in the furthest Northern States west of the 
Mississippi and east of the Cascade range. In 
the interior of Minnesota, ice is still about thirty 
inches thick. North Dakota reports twenty-one 
inches at Bismarck and twenty-five and one-half 
inches at Williston. Practically all of the great 
Eastern rivers, as well as the Ohio and its 
immediate tributaries, were cleared of ice prior 
to the middle of March, leaving only the upper 
Mississippi drainage basin, which now has about 
four inches of snow from which on its own ac¬ 
count little is to be feared. The Upper Lakes 
still are icebound. 
Another compensating fact is the minimiz¬ 
ing of damage to river craft on such streams as 
the Ohio, Mississippi, Hudson, Delaware, Sus¬ 
quehanna and lesser streams. Usually, thousands 
of damage are inflicted not only on vessels at 
wharf and those moored in coves for winter 
keeping, but on docks and anchorages as well, 
wherever the ice gorges or floating ice has had 
access. Thus this season has a credit not to be 
overlooked when the account is finally balanced 
against the desolating floods. 
“NESSMUK.” 
Just imagine a story by Nessmuk in this 
day, when the old outdoor reader complains that 
“nowadays we don’t get such great stuff as 
Nessmuk, Kingfisher, Mather and their kind 
used to write.” Cheer up—we have a hereto¬ 
fore unpublished story by Nessmuk (George W. 
Sears), with the manuscript written, as they all 
were, in his own hand writing, the crabbed, un¬ 
even hand of the man devoting much time to 
the gun, rod, paddle and axe, and only using the 
pen when he had in mind something too good 
to be kept from those he loved, the men who 
sought outdoors life. The narrative is one of 
slavery days, long before the emancipation of 
the negro. It is Nessmukian in its simpleness, 
with an anti-climax that makes one want to get 
up and holler. 
We came across the story in a bundle of 
manuscripts that had been “copy read” and set 
aside for later use. In those days Nessmuk 
had many confreres of the rod, gun and pen, 
some of whom were his equal in their facility 
with these implements, consequently a story by 
Nessmuk took its turn with that of others in 
publication. At any rate, this great story comes 
now as a reminder of one of the greatest out¬ 
door writers this country ever has known. The 
story will begin in the next issue; you won’t 
want to miss it. If you buy from the new- 
stands, order early from your dealer. 
MARCH ADVERTISING RECORD. 
Most everyone agrees that there is much news 
and information in advertisements, and that the 
reader takes pleasure in perusing them, though 
he has no definite want in view. Some time ago 
we heard of a man who was in the habit of 
sending some of the American magazines to a 
friend in India, but who tore out the advertis¬ 
ing pages in order to save postage. Getting a 
letter from the recipient, his friend wrote him 
thus: “Please discontinue removing the adver¬ 
tising pages, as I enjoy the advertisements fully 
as much, if not more, than the main part of 
the magazine.” 
Printers’ Ink compiles the total number of 
agate lines of advertising carried by four out¬ 
door publications last month as follows: 
Publication. March, 1913. 
1. Forest and Stream.17,639 
2. Outing Magazine .13.496 
3. Field & Stream.11,636 
4. Outdoor World . 7,476 
It seems to us that the publication carrying 
a large amount of advertising is more valuable 
and interesting to the subscriber than one with¬ 
out this kind of information. 
The above tabulation shows where Forest 
AND Stream stands. 
